Walgreens fills vacancy in photo dept.

DEERFIELD, Ill. Filling a void created by the departure last month of merchandising guru Chong Bang, Walgreens said Monday it has promoted Mona Kelly to general merchandise manager in charge of photo and front-end services.

Kelly is no stranger to the job. She joined Walgreens in 2005 as divisional merchandise manager of photo operations, and saw her role expanded in October 2008 to include oversight of Walgreens’ front-end services department. In February of 2009, she was given additional responsibility for gift cards, prepaid phone cards, cameras, film and digital media.

Prior to joining Walgreens, Kelly was VP photo at Eckerd Drug. According to Walgreens spokesperson Tiffani Washington, “Kelly has 35 years of experience in the photo industry in both operations and merchandising.”

As previously reported, her predecessor in photo and front-end management, Chong Bang, left the company in mid-December – after spearheading the creation and launch of Walgreens’ sweeping Customer Centric Retailing [CCR] initiative – to join Shoppers Drug Mart as SVP merchandising. His replacement as VP of CCR is 20-year company veteran Mike Arnoult.

At Shoppers, Bang reports to Mary Kelly, Shoppers’ EVP merchandising and category management. Kelly, the former head of pharmacy and healthcare merchandising at Target, joined Shoppers in early 2009.

Walgreens taps veteran to head CCR

NEW YORK In a high-stakes campaign to fire up its front-end appeal, reaffirm its relationship with America’s consumers and rejuvenate its same-store sales, Walgreens has gone to its bench.

Walgreens has named one of its veteran operations people, Mike Arnoult, to the key post of VP in charge of Customer Centric Retailing. Until last month, the post was held by Chong Bang, who left the company in mid-December to oversee merchandising at Toronto-based Shoppers Drug Mart.

Unlike Bang, Arnoult is more a seasoned operations manager than a merchant. His appointment is a clear sign that Walgreens has moved beyond the conceptual and launch phase of CCR, and is ready to begin the next phase of the massive project: the expansion of a CCR-based store design across Walgreens’ coast-to-coast network of 7,147 drug stores.

Nevertheless, Arnoult inherits a critical challenge at the retail behemoth. CCR encompasses Walgreens’ massive effort to pull together a sprawling marketing and merchandising operation and focus its efforts more sharply on meeting and anticipating customer demands. Within two or three years, it will transform the chain’s front-end presentation and go-to-market strategy coast-to-coast with a leaner, more condensed merchandise mix; a sharper focus on health, wellness and patient education in the aisles; improved departmental adjacencies and signing; and — Walgreens merchants hope — a better overall shopping experience.

Bang took CCR all the way from conception to realization, streamlining assortments, cutting hundreds of redundant SKUs, and applying new rationale to categories, adjacencies and promotional strategy at the front end. He also oversaw the test and launch of a new Walgreens store prototype, based on CCR principles and a better read of consumer needs.

Arnoult will now take the CCR rollout from a 400-store pilot in Texas to nationwide completion. Given the chain’s aggressive plans for 2010 — nearly 3,000 stores scheduled for a CCR redesign by the end of the year — he’ll need to bring all his proven management skills to bear to coordinate local-market remodeling activities with Walgreens’ operations and merchandising teams.

Arnoult brings to his task a strong resume in store, district and regional management. His 20-year career at Walgreens includes stints as store manager, district manager and store operations VP, followed by a year as head of online merchandising. He’s a 1990 graduate of Marquette University with a B.A. in communications.

“His ability to build relationships and collaborate across the organization will be invaluable,” Walgreens asserted.

Bartell to cease filling Medicaid prescriptions at 15 locations

NEW YORK The Medicaid storm is still intense in Washington as Bartell Drugs has announced that — as of Feb. 1 — it will no longer fill Medicaid prescriptions at 15 of its 57 stores. Limiting access to pharmacies with its payment cuts could spell an increase in other healthcare costs — costs that represent the majority of health expenditures.

As stated in the article, the decision stems from a court decision in Massachusetts in September 2009 that reduced the industry pricing standard.

Bartell stated that — unlike most other insurance providers, including other states — the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services has made no effort to offset this significant reduction, resulting in sizeable reductions in payments to pharmacies.

The intent, according to Bartell, is to return to the established level of compensation prior to the Sept. 26, 2009, court action. As it currently stands, Bartell simply can’t afford to fill the Medicaid prescriptions.

While Bartell currently is the only pharmacy retailer to take such action, it certainly isn’t alone in the battle.

In March 2009, Walgreens threatened to stop serving Medicaid patients in 44 of its stores in the state. The company at that time stated that it operates 111 pharmacies throughout the state, but the 44 pharmacies in question represented more than 60% of its total Medicaid business in the state. However, in May 2009, Walgreens stated that it would continue to serve Medicaid patients when the state agreed to make smaller cuts than it had planned.

But will the court decision in Massachusetts now prompt other pharmacies to follow in Bartell’s footsteps? Perhaps, but if you ask Doug Porter, the state’s director of Medicaid, he will likely say no. In a recent Seattle Times article, Porter was quoted as saying that Medicaid recipients should not worry about other companies following suit and he is “convinced pharmacies can weather this change.” As reported by the Seattle Times, several pharmacies and industry trade groups filed suit in U.S. District Court in Seattle trying to force the state to return its reimbursement rates to those it was paying before the Massachusetts settlement. A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 15.

Last year, the pharmacy groups filed another lawsuit, after an earlier attempt by the state to cut its reimbursement rates. That suit was withdrawn when the state agreed to make smaller cuts than it had planned.

“We are deeply concerned about the health of our patients. Pharmacists are on the front lines of our healthcare system protecting patients by ensuring safe and appropriate medication use. Commercial healthcare payers and Medicaid programs in some states have already adjusted pharmacy reimbursement necessary to maintain patient access to the essential care provided by pharmacies. If Washington Medicaid does not do the same, it can result in reduced access to medicine for our neediest and most vulnerable patients ultimately leading to expensive emergency room visits and hospitalizations,” stated Jeff Rochon, Pharm.D., CEO, Washington State Pharmacy Association, in an NACDS press statement issued in September.

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